


Intermission

by alcego (orphan_account)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Divergent, Canon Realistic Trauma, Emotional Hurt/Implied Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M, soft as shit despite my subconscious' best efforts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-16 23:15:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15448011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/alcego
Summary: In a universe where Lotor's goals aligned with Voltron's, he and Keith wind up together, living in an isolated shack on a destitute planet. Their shared trauma has given them a mutual understanding of what it means to cope, and what it means to fall apart at the seams. Together, they stitch their frayed edges closed and put pressure on their open wounds. Healing is slow, for them and for the universe, but it is steady.Enjoy this slice-of-life fic that takes place in the midst of their recovery, and know this: they will heal, but first they must break.





	Intermission

Mist drifted from the valley's depths, painting the scenery a dull, opaque gray. It moved slowly, so slowly that to the casual eye it would not have appeared to be moving at all.

But Lotor's was not the casual eye. Ghosting tendrils of mist crept towards the derelict shack he shared with Keith, moving with the certain inevitability unique to nature's wards. Such were the ways of mist.

Transfixed, Lotor stood and watched water dance through the air, pushed into wild trajectories by the slightest shift of the wind. The mists moved in slow motion, defying gravity and time itself; they wrapped around him, enveloped the hill on which he stood, but never seemed to move.

Time blurred. The mists condensed, came together until they could only be called fog. Dimly, Lotor noticed a fuller darkness than that of a cloud blocked sun fall across the sky, but that was distant. Unimportant.

The concept of night was trivial to his drifting thoughts and idle conscious. There could be no day and no night, for there was only now and the images that accompanied it.

Lightning cracked.

White. Blinding light. Not lightning — _gun_.

Phantom pain raced up the path of Lotor's back, commanding his muscles to spasm, his heart to stutter, his breath to stop. Amber light pierced the fog. Clarity was lost to false fire.

Heart caught in his throat, Lotor stumbled over his feet — or was it a rock? — tried to clutch his chest, his head, his throat all at once. Realized it was impossible, that he didn't have enough hands. Tried anyway.

Stiff gooseflesh coated his skin. Thunder cracked like a whip in the night.

Lotor felt the numbness first. It was the lack of sensation, spotted with aching bites of cold. His fingers, stiff and useless, received the worst of it.

Shivering, Lotor wrapped his arms around his body. Fragmented emotions, remnants of trauma and the pain therein, whirled through his mind. Frozen bonds, long removed, cut into his wrists. Phantom pain.

It wasn't real.

Reality played little part in the pain. It had happened, and that was all that mattered.

Because memories were frightening, treacherous things. They infantilized Lotor, brought him down to his most vulnerable and tore into him with rusted knives and barbed truths. The degradation didn't always hurt; he could ignore the shame and face the horror of what he'd done. But on nights such as these Lotor knew that he was not invulnerable to his haunted reveries.

At times like these, Lotor sought solid ground. Hoped that familiarity would hold his shattering soul together. So he turned around, facing the shack that he shared with Keith, and began to walk.

 

— — —

 

Lotor was late. Hands balled into fists on his knees, Keith focused on the lines of muscles in his wrists. He wasn't worried. It wasn't Lotor's first time being late.

Except Lotor clung to routine as if it was the only thing holding him together. For months now, Lotor had ended his day with that strange, haunted vigil at the end of the valley. The rationale behind his behavior eluded Keith — but he had seen how the habit brought something like peace to Lotor's eyes, and that was all Keith needed to know.

Lotor's being late was low on Keith's list of concerns. It had to be, or else Keith would be worried.

When Keith couldn't sleep, he found himself watching the man sleeping beside him, as if to remind him that this was real. That Lotor was beside him, in bed with him, and that he wasn't going anywhere. That, for once, Keith's overwhelming _want_ was reciprocated by his partner.

The sentiment was sweet, but it was a thin comfort against the splintered edges of Lotor's controlled demeanor. Asleep, Lotor was vulnerable. He had no facades or skillfully crafted expressions to protect him.

On those nights, Keith wondered if Lotor's routine was the one thing keeping him sane.

Keith stood. Crossed his arms. Remembered the warped facsimile of a smile on Lotor's face that had not been a smile, but bared teeth shrouded in social grace. Thought of that smile's slow evolution, from predatory to smug to curiously infatuated.

Keith pictured Lotor's smile after their first kiss: a genuine thing marked not by a ploy that would pay off later but by emotion. Joy.

Fear lodged itself in Keith's throat. Lotor was late, perhaps lost. And what was Keith doing? Standing around like some helpless fool, waiting for lady luck to bring Lotor back safely.

He was stalling.

Lotor's coat hung loosely over the back of the couch, staring at Keith accusingly. _It's always best to be prepared_ , Lotor had said once, folding his neatly pressed coat over his arm as if it hadn't been insufferably hot outside.

Keith frowned. Concern nagged at the back of his mind. There was no use denying it any longer: Keith was worried. Terrified, even.

Anticipating the night's chill, Keith grabbed Lotor's jacket and put on his own, a battered but sturdy brown coat lined with wool. Keith had worked with Lotor for years — god, nearly a decade now — and Lotor never went anywhere unless he was wholly prepared. Not if he could help it, anyway.

Being late, forgetting his jacket… they were little things. Nothing big enough to upset Keith’s stomach and seize his lungs with an iron vise. But combined, all of those little things became symptoms of a bigger problem.

The porch creaked.

Keith turned, breathless, to see Lotor climbing the humble, ailing steps of their porch. He emerged like a specter from the fog, which hung heavily in the air, flowing past his shoulders and back into the night. Lotor rubbed his hands together as if to ward off the cold and stomped the dirt from his boots.

Heart stuttering, Keith stumbled to the door. Opened it. Laughed, if the choked sound he made could be considered a laugh. "You're okay."

Lotor blinked. Watched Keith's face, eyes searching. And then sighed. Tried to cover his frustration with a smile. "Was I gone long?"

"You could say that."

Lotor's smile softened, melted, and it gentled him, eased Keith's taut nerves. Lotor plucked his jacket from Keith's shoulder, brow furrowing as he realized that he'd left it behind. He looked up, met Keith's gaze.

Keith's breath caught in his throat; Lotor's breath touched his face, warm despite the chill that had permeated everything around them. He would never get used to being this close to Lotor, to the way his stomach came to life in new and unexpected ways every time he thought of Lotor's lips on his.

"My apologies," Lotor said softly, eyes taking Keith apart, "for worrying you."

Some part of Keith wanted to argue. Say that he hadn't been worried, that he'd known Lotor would be back soon. But those were pointless arguments, and Keith was a lousy liar anyway.

The raw truth of Keith's worry lay uncomfortably between them. Cold air bit into Keith's skin, spat impossibly small droplets of water over his face.

Mindlessly, Keith's fingers flitted towards Lotor's wrist, his hand. Pulled it close to Keith's chest, cradling it in his own. Took comfort in the presence of Lotor. Because Lotor had come back. He had _always_ come back.

"You're cold," Keith said.

Smirking, Lotor let Keith pull him into their shack. "That does tend to happen when one is outside when a cold front blows in."

Despite their shack's excellent insulation and the heat radiating from the middle of the room, the night's chill lingered on Keith's skin. Idly, he wondered how deep the cold had dug into Lotor.

"C'mon,” Keith said, voice hardly a whisper. “Let's get you warmed up."

**Author's Note:**

> it occurred to me that i'd forgotten to post this. so uh, here. have a thing. idk what i'm doing anymore but feel free to leave me feedback so i know what u think. also blz hmu at [my tungle](https://alcego.tumblr.com) if u think ur interested in my chaos.


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